SharePoint Foundation 2010 - Is It All That?

So on May 12th Microsoft will finally launch SharePoint 2010 and then 30 days later we have the real important 2010 event, the FIFA World Cup in South Africa. So let me take another look at the new free version of SharePoint – Windows SharePoint Foundation 2010. We can leave worries about Rooney’s fitness, the effects of John Terry’s lovelife and England’s lack of a recognised goalkeeper for a few weeks. Although, feel free to leave any comments about the England squad just in case Fabio Capello does have a passing interest in the new SharePoint.

So what have Microsoft put into the new Windows SharePoint Foundation? Truth is quite a bit if you are a developer and they have finally put some order to the Central Admin (the bit on the Server where you manage the system), but they have not really included too many wow factors for the average end user. Mind you I don’t think they need to because the current Windows SharePoint Services (version 3) does a terrific job. It is very simple to customise and employees soon pick it up. Office Talk finds that a two hour End user course (which they provide at very reasonable rates) is all they require to get them using SharePoint. So apart from some fine tuning Microsoft decided all they really needed to do to make their leading package more appealing was to put a fancy ribbon on it. Very similar to the way Fifa have a winning product with the World Cup, but every four years will make some minor changes to the competition just to make it different to the last one.

So what do I think are the wow factors for SharePoint Foundation 2010? Well after hours of playing with it I have come up with a list of ten enhancements I like. Microsoft has their own much larger list if you want to see all the ‘New Features’. But here is my ten in no particular order;

1. SMS Alerts
Quite basic but pretty neat (even if they are probably in league with the mobile phone companies). As well as sending Alerts to Email addresses or groups of Emails you can now send them via SMS text messages to a mobile phone. Great for sending out announcements to on the road Sales staff to help keep them informed of product changes. Mind you a lot of them now have Blackberry phones so they already get their email on their mobile free of charge. It could be good also for sending offers to customers.

2. Health Analyzer
One problem with the current version of SharePoint is it is often difficult to know how it is doing and unless you are permanently monitoring the Event Logs the only time you know there is a problem is when the whole system stops. Although there are some free tools available that will let you monitor performance. So in SharePoint Foundation there is a built in Health Analyzer which automatically checks and notifies you of potential problems.

3. Enforcing Uniqueness
At first I didn’t get this new entry when creating a column but then saw the ability to check that the entry hadn’t been used before in that field was very useful. This is great for reference numbers or ranking items. In the World Cup it could be used for seeding the finalists (I know there is no seeding) and making sure each seed number was only used once. So when seed 6 has gone nobody else can be seeded 6.

4. Access External Lists
Very useful to give the free version of SharePoint some of the features available in the full Server bit. The ability to link to databases and external feeds is very useful. Helps link to other company systems like an ERP system.

5. Enhanced mobile support
In a world now being dominated my Iphones and Blackberry phones the ability to configure which webparts are displayed on mobile devices is pretty cool. I am 43 now and must stop saying ‘cool’.

6. Ribbon
Ok I am not a great fan and think it just reduces the amount of data displayed on screen, but some people (including our Marketing Manager Frank) like the ability of the ribbon to display all the functions that used to be hidden away under ‘Site Settings’. I can see the benefit and am starting to use the tabs more, but just wish I could customise it more and put icons in places that make sense to me.

7. Rich Text Editing
Now it is easy to make changes to any item on your SharePoint site and add text simply by being in ‘Edit Page’ view. You can change fonts, colours, sizes and insert images as you wish. You can even quickly add html code without the need to insert the Content Editor Webpart. This is probably the most pleasing edition to the software for the End user.

8. Central Administration – (configuration wizards)
Finally gone are the confusing ‘Operations’ and ‘Application’ sections and instead the revamped Central Admin is easy to navigate through. With sections to monitor what really is happening and easy access to backups. With the addition of a number of configuration wizards as well it is now easier to configure your SharePoint. Yes, a definite thumbs up here.

9. High Availability Fall over.
SharePoint works best when all the company data is stored on it so it needs to be available 100% of time. This is why this little extra which allows you to have a fall-over is great. It the main SQL database cannot be accessed it quickly flips over to a reserve one automatically.

10. FAST Search with Metadata
For many people the biggest disappointment with SharePoint is the searching. It promises so much but then fails to deliver (like the England football team of old). The need to buy third-party tools to enable wildcard searching has been a frustration. But now built on the FAST Search application the search is now a lot more powerful and can now easily be filtered by appropriate metadata. Oh, and yes wildcard searching is finally included.


So ten advantages of moving, but don’t forget even SharePoint Foundation 2010 requires a 64-bit server and as with all new software there will be teething problems. So maybe it is best to wait until the first service Pack is out or at least until after England win the World Cup.

To try a Hosted version of SharePoint (with free upgrade to SharePoint Foundation at any of May) just click the following link https://officetalk.teamportal.com/default.aspx

So now to start thinking about the England 23 man squad for the World Cup and the even more important job of picking the England World Cup Song for 2010. There have been many interesting ones over the years here are some of my favourites;

1966 : World Cup Willy
1970 : Back Home
1982 : This Time
1990 : World in Motion
1998 : Three Lions (1998 remix)
2002 : We’re on the ball
2006 : Come On England


Please let me know which one was your favourite.

Oh, and just so my Scottish readers don't feel left out here is my favourite Scotland World Cup Song.

I Have A Dream - 1982

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